Isiah Kiner-Falefa stoked tensions in the heated American League East by taking a shot at his former team.<\/p>\n
A week after signing a one-year deal<\/a> with the Red Sox, the ex-Yankees utilityman said he and his former Blue Jays teammates were rooting for New York to beat Boston in last year\u2019s wild-card round to receive an \u201ceasier matchup\u201d in the Division Series, according to the Boston Globe\u2019s Tim Healey<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe thought it was a better matchup for us the other way [facing the Yankees],\u201d Kiner-Falefa told reporters Tuesday.<\/p>\n Isiah Kiner-Falefa of the Boston Red Sox speaks to the media during a team workout ahead of Spring Training at JetBlue Park at Fenway South on February 10, 2026 in Fort Myers, Florida. Getty Images<\/p>\n Kiner-Falefa, 30, spent two polarizing seasons in New York \u2014 particularly his first in 2022, when he served as the team\u2019s everyday shortstop before transitioning to a super-utility role behind Anthony Volpe.<\/p>\n After spending parts of the 2024 and 2025 campaigns with the Blue Jays and Pirates, he returned to Toronto ahead of its first push to the World Series since 1993.<\/p>\n Isiah Kiner-Falefa spent two seasons with the Yankees from 2022 to 2023. Charles Wenzelberg \/ New York Post<\/p>\n While Toronto and New York tied for the top record in the American League in 2025, the Blue Jays owned the tiebreaker after wiping the floor with their division rival during the regular season.<\/p>\n They wanted a chance to go back to the well, which is exactly what they got after the Bronx Bombers stormed back from a Game 1 loss to beat the arch-rival Red Sox in three games.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Jays laughed off the popular notion \u2014 \u201cbe careful what you wish for\u201d \u2014 and completed a gentleman\u2019s sweep of the Yankees, outscoring them 34-19 in the ALDS.\u00a0<\/p>\n Isiah Kiner-Falefa returned to the Blue Jays ahead of their march to the World Series. MLB Photos via Getty Images<\/p>\n Kiner-Falefa, who hit .162 with a pair of RBIs across 15 postseason games, is the latest ex-Yankee to send an errant shot at the team after joining their greatest foe.<\/p>\n In December, newly acquired starting pitcher Sonny Gray explained that he was happy to be in \u201ca place where it\u2019s easy to hate the Yankees<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n Not long before, reigning AL Reliever of the Year<\/a> Aroldis Chapman emphasized that he would never return to The Bronx \u2014 \u201cNot even dead<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\tGo beyond the box score with the Bombers\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSign up for Inside the Yankees by Greg Joyce, exclusively on Sports+.\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\tThank you\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n Tension between the two rivals continues to escalate before Opening Day, with the Yankees and Red Sox slated to meet for the first time this season from April 21-23 at Fenway Park.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Isiah Kiner-Falefa stoked tensions in the heated American League East by taking a shot at his former team.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":565057,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2376],"tags":[5,48,2057,4,1690,62,2548,2547,185,151,70,142],"class_list":{"0":"post-565056","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-yankees","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-boston-red-sox","10":"tag-isiah-kiner-falefa","11":"tag-mlb","12":"tag-new-york","13":"tag-new-york-yankees","14":"tag-newyork","15":"tag-newyorkyankees","16":"tag-sports","17":"tag-spring-training","18":"tag-toronto-blue-jays","19":"tag-yankees"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116048914478070419","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565056","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=565056"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565056\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/565057"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=565056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=565056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=565056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}